November 12, 2008 // 9:26 pm - Yesterday we reported news of Microsoft starting a new wave of XBox Live bans on modded XBox 360 consoles.

Today, Microsoft's Major "Larry Hyrb" Nelson has confirmed it stating the following via his blog linked above:

Xbox 360 Console banning: I've gotten a few messages and seen some forum threads pop up on console bannings so I thought I'd post and let folks know what's up.

In our our continued effort to keep gameplay safe and secure for our community of more than 14 million members, Microsoft has taken action against a small percentage of Xbox 360 consoles that have been illegally modified in order to play pirated games.

You should know that modifying your Xbox 360 console is also a violation of the Xbox LIVE terms of use, will void your warranty and result in a ban from Xbox LIVE.

The health of the video game business depends on customers paying for the genuine products and services they receive, both from manufacturers and the local companies that support them.

We will continue to employ and bolster anti-piracy security measures to counter piracy in the gaming industry and improve security in the Xbox LIVE community.

I think this is a good idea, reason is: if people copy games and it becomes more comon place, the games developers lose money and the games that are made become crapper due to time and staff costs to make them.

All the developer cost just to make one title then to be cloned 50,000 times for nothing could bring the dev industry to a stand still.